Mayor Bloomberg’s Appointee Criticizes Her Boss on Homeless Policy

Lilliam Barrios-Paoli at a news conference Thursday with Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio.

A top member of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, upon accepting an appointment to work for New York City’s incoming mayor, delivered Thursday a sharp critique of her current boss’ approach to homelessness — a rare public rebuke of a sitting mayor from a subordinate.

At a news conference, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio named Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, Mr. Bloomberg’s commissioner of the city’s Department for the Aging since 2009, as his new deputy mayor for health and human services. Ms. Barrios-Paoli is to replace her boss, Linda Gibbs, who has held the deputy mayor post since January 2006.

Ms. Barrios-Paoli strongly criticized the Bloomberg administration’s policies on homelessness, denouncing a decision to cancel a rent subsidy program in 2011 that contributed to a dramatic increase in the city’s shelter population. There are more than 52,000 people in city shelters, including more than 22,000 children, an all-time high. Since Mr. Bloomberg took office in 2002, the number of people in shelters has increased 71% and the number of families in shelter increased 83%.

“For a long time, there’s been a very negative perception of who the poor are, and we have mistreated them in many ways,” Ms. Barrios-Paoli said. “We have been punitive. We have assumed that people are poor just because they choose to be poor as opposed to because life happened to them. And I think we need to change that attitude.”

“I would have done many things differently,” she said, speaking of the Bloomberg administration.

Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Gibbs, who are leaving city government on Dec. 31, declined to respond to Ms. Barrios-Paoli’s remarks, Mr. Bloomberg’s spokesman said. A spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Homeless Services did not respond to a request for comment.

Ms. Barrios-Paoli said she “clearly shared” her concerns with deputy mayors about the current administration’s approach to homelessness, but she suggested her thoughts fell on deaf ears. As an agency head, she said, she couldn’t affect policies in other departments.

Ms. Barrios-Paoli was particularly critical of the city’s decision to cancel the rental subsidy program known as Advantage, which helped previously homeless families transition to housing. The Bloomberg administration cut Advantage after the state cut its contribution to the program, a decision that also eliminated federal funding.

The mayor-elect and Ms. Barrios-Paoli said they will reinstitute a similar rent-subsidy program, making city funding for it a priority. “There are many ways of getting to that housing subsidy with present funding streams,” said Ms. Barrios-Paoli, marking a clear disagreement with Mr. Bloomberg, who said the city doesn’t have the money to pay for this program.

Ms. Barrios-Paoli, a former nun, said she has spent the bulk of her career trying to help the poor. She described her appointment to Mr. de Blasio’s administration as invigorating because combating poverty is a “central tenet” of his agenda, “not just an afterthought, not just something that it would be good to do.”

“I totally believe that we’re living a tale of two cities. No question about it,” she said, referring to Mr. de Blasio’s campaign theme. “I hope to bring a new respect for the poor.”

Ms. Barrios-Paoli previously served as head of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Personnel Department, Department of Employment and the Human Resources Administration, the nation’s largest public welfare agency. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani removed her as head of the welfare agency in 1997 after the two repeatedly clashed.

Mr. de Blasio said Ms. Barrios-Paoli has an “extraordinarily compassionate heart” and is confident she will reverse social services trends in the city, particularly with homelessness.

“An ever-growing homeless population is unacceptable to the future of New York City — it’s just literally unacceptable,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It will not happen on our watch.”